New and Experienced climbers over 50 ##24

PTRwrote:

Another cool new discovery at my local boulder field.  May have to buy a second pad.

Where’s the lichen?  Be careful or you’ll end up with six pads like me!

Ward Smithwrote:

Onions started but looks like a while before I’ll be planting in the garden.

How much did you get?
We got about 4 inches of the heavy stuff.  Sure seems like only the heavy stuff for us this winter.

Lichen is certainly abundant around here.  

bunch more snow here.. cant really tell how much because its two foot drifts in some places and bare ground in others. will have to go skiing again...  more climbing porn..

Working on the tomato.  I really think with full concentration we can make this thing happen. 

Illusion Dweller.  It’s a long way down.

Wordle in 2.    

Lori Milaswrote:

Working on the tomato.  I really think with full concentration we can make this thing happen. 

Illusion Dweller.  It’s a long way down.

Wordle in 2.    

Every time I've grown tomatoes I ended up with worms.

Lori, I see that Lynn Hill is doing a climbing camp at JT next month. Think about signing up. I see her pretty frequently at the gym and she's very friendly and unpretentious.
Took me 4 to get wordle today. I do two other wordle websites every day and, much to my surprise, got both in 2. But the NYT is the gold standard. 

Idaho Bobwrote:

Every time I've grown tomatoes I ended up with worms.

just don't eat them Bob!  The worms, that is.  I actually haven't gotten worms the last couple years but that my be because my cat likes to catch and eat the moths.

We had 3 3/4 inches of rain in the last 24 hours!  Still really dark and wet out.

wendy weisswrote:

Lori, I see that Lynn Hill is doing a climbing camp at JT next month. Think about signing up. I see her pretty frequently at the gym and she's very friendly and unpretentious.
Took me 4 to get wordle today. I do two other wordle websites every day and, much to my surprise, got both in 2. But the NYT is the gold standard. 

Thanks Wendy! Every year I’ve thought about signing up. I’d be really nice to climb with her.  I haven’t said much about my health situation lately but it’s still so very unpredictable. Some days it’s sheer force of will. So Lynn’s course I believe is a three day commitment and I’d hate to let down the group by only half participating. Giving a thought. 

This Wordle thing is baffling. Sometimes I think it’s just sheer luck, but it is fun.

Idaho Bobwrote:

Every time I've grown tomatoes I ended up with worms.

You, or the tomato??

If you mean tomato hornworms, just put on a glove and pluck the ugly feckers off. Mine then got treated to a nice flying session, followed by a swim in the canal. 

That's past tense though.

Mr. Raccoon, our first cat who made the move to this house as a youngster in 1980, caught the hornworm moths so often, he had to pass inspection before he could come back in the house after sunset. If his whiskers were fluttering, it was a no. He always wanted to bring the moths in, which meant we all ended up playing chase the giant moth. His version of catch and release.

I haven't had a hornworm in the garden this century. 

Headed to the Y today, which will include a weight machine circuit.

Lori, I just gave up and pay for a trainer at the Y. She walked me through various things, including this circuit they have set up. Once I'm a little beefier, there are classes that are both weight and cardio. I don't have the "discipline" to do much of anything, consistently, I'm just not wired for that, so I've learned to have lots and lots of options and ways to "bargain" with myself. 

Yes that sometimes involves cheesecake.   

Joking, sorta, but, as tiny as it is, knowing the Y has free coffee if I get there before noon, dies help get my feet out the door.

The main thing for me, is to not talk myself out of "it", whatever the "it" is. If I'm at all inclined to do something, jump on it.

Best, Helen

We just got back from NYC, visiting our two daughters and attending the American Alpine Club's annual gala. Weather varied from ok, to not so great. We wanted to get back to Central Park for bouldering, but that didn't work out.

We did get to climb at the relatively new Cliffs at Gowanus gym in Brooklyn. A very nice facility. We discovered that I suck at the speed climbing course!

The AAC had several excellent programs (panel discussion and presentations). The evening dinner was great fun, we ended up sitting with Dave Black (a former SoCal climber and good friend of Al Bartlett) and his wife Kathy. 

The awards presentations were well deserved and at times entertaining. The highlight was the keynote speaker, Al Gore. While VP, he and his then 16 year old son, climbed Mt. Rainier. While most of his speech was about climbing, he did talk about global warming as well. 

 One of the panel discussions.

Lori Milaswrote:

Thanks Wendy! Every year I’ve thought about signing up. I’d be really nice to climb with her.  I haven’t said much about my health situation lately but it’s still so very unpredictable. Some days it’s sheer force of will. So Lynn’s course I believe is a three day commitment and I’d hate to let down the group by only half participating. Giving a thought. 

I’m sure you can contact Lynn via her web page. She is a wonderful person and could advise you about joining the clinic. I’d get on it though, as it might well sell out. 

I wasn't even sure I wanted to do spuds this year....

But....

There they were.

Little packages of hope that winter isn't forever, and a treasure hunt of surprises in the fall.

I bought about 8 varieties. :-)

The semi from eastern Idaho arrived yesterday. He had some of them out, about 2/3 still to go. These are organic seed potatoes, but seed potatoes are a big crop here, as are seeds of a surprisingly large number of things.

That does also mean the experimental stuff though, too. A whole bunch of Big Ag here, with the whole spectrum all the way down to peeps like me. I've been a "producer" of seed crops, as a backyard (front yard, neighbor's yard, community garden plots, lol) scale "farmer".

Which means 2 different "dirt bag" lives.

 

With apologies to all the neighborhood bunny rabbits, I'm never going to grow any of my own food, except possibly herbs. But I have discovered the most wonderful yukon gold potatoes at my local market. Coated with olive oil and roasted at high temperature, they positively melt. I hope they're available forever.  

S. Neohwrote:

How much did you get?
We got about 4 inches of the heavy stuff.  Sure seems like only the heavy stuff for us this winter.

Measured 23 inches in the driveway after settling this morning.  The way they measure it (cleaning the white board every couple of hours) probably pushing 30.  

Ward Smithwrote:

Measured 23 inches in the driveway after settling this morning.  The way they measure it (cleaning the white board every couple of hours) probably pushing 30.  

We got 0 inches of anything, but a sh*t ton of wind on the back side of the same Nor'easter.  Almost 60 and sunny tomorrow, so I be going climbing.  Might have 3 of us, so maybe even a pic or 2. Next few days in or near 60, so biking and kayaking are on the schedule after that.  Spring is coming much sooner for us in DE than those in New England for sure.  It's been a pretty dry winter here.

T

I spent more than 20 hours last week shoveling snow off the roof of my friend’s house, where we were staying in Myers. It was 8 feet deep + in places, and we were concerned about the incoming atmospheric river adding more weight.

Randywrote:

We just got back from NYC, visiting our two daughters and attending the American Alpine Club's annual gala. Weather varied from ok, to not so great. We wanted to get back to Central Park for bouldering, but that didn't work out.

We did get to climb at the relatively new Cliffs at Gowanus gym in Brooklyn. A very nice facility. We discovered that I suck at the speed climbing course!

The AAC had several excellent programs (panel discussion and presentations). The evening dinner was great fun, we ended up sitting with Dave Black (a former SoCal climber and good friend of Al Bartlett) and his wife Kathy. 

The awards presentations were well deserved and at times entertaining. The highlight was the keynote speaker, Al Gore. While VP, he and his then 16 year old son, climbed Mt. Rainier. While most of his speech was about climbing, he did talk about global warming as well. 

 One of the panel discussions.

It sounds like it was a wonderful trip, Randy.  I’ve always loved Al Gore and many times wondered where we would be today had he been our president.  Iraq would not have happened.  We would hopefully have made strides on our environment and global warming.  It would have been a different world.  

Lori Milaswrote:

It sounds like it was a wonderful trip, Randy.  I’ve always loved Al Gore and many times wondered where we would be today had he been our president.  Iraq would not have happened.  We would hopefully have made strides on our environment and global warming.  It would have been a different world.  

I’m just glad he invented the internet.  The rest of his hypocritical life is not much to crow about.  I will give him some points for his change of heart towards “big tobacco” after realizing he had a hand in killing his own sister.

Putting aside Al Gore’s contribution, at least one active climber did make a significant contribution to the creation of the internet. Willie Crowther was an MIT graduate, who worked for a consulting firm (B.B. and N.) and was part of their team which played a major role in the development of the net—Willie himself created an important router component.

Willie was a very active climber and caver, and one of the leading figures in the MIT Outing Club  for many years. He made the first ascents of a number of classic climbs in the Northeast, including Arrow in the Gunks and Sliding Board on Whitehorse Ledge in NH.

As a caver he was very involved in the exploration and eventual linkage of the Mammoth and Flint Ridge cave systems— the largest in the US. Out of this experience he developed a computer game to entertain his daughters, one of the first ever made, which became the foundation of many subsequent computer games.